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The mother wept with relief as she cradled her newborn baby at the only maternity hospital still working in the Ukrainian city of Kherson.

Yulia Khomchyk, 37, discovered she was pregnant after Russian forces had seized the regional capital during the first days of the full-scale invasion in February.

But almost nine months later, a major Ukrainian counter-offensive managed to liberate the city in one of the most significant victories of the war so far – and just in time for the birth.

Putin scraps major annual news conference – Ukraine war latest

Yulia
Image:
Yulia Khomchyk with her baby girl Maldina
Baby Maldina

“She is clearly Ukrainian, clearly born without all this occupation,” Yulia said, nursing her tiny girl called Maldina as she sat on a hospital bed next to a radiator to keep them warm.

“I am so glad that she is clearly Ukrainian. I am so glad, so glad.”

Kherson’s renewed freedom has brought a new reality, though, as Russian troops switch from being occupiers to attackers, launching deadly rocket and mortar strikes daily.

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The bombardments have left more than 40 civilians, including at least one child, dead and many more injured. At least three people were killed on Monday in the latest barrage.

Adding to the misery, the city is suffering from power outages, a lack of running water and many residents are reliant upon food handouts to survive.

It is a huge challenge for Halyna Luhova, the de-facto mayor, but she said the city would endure.

“The situation is pretty difficult,” she told Sky News in an interview on Saturday.

“They shell us daily… innocent civilians die… but even if we will be hungry, freezing, without electricity – we will be without Russians.”

The mayor – known as the head of the Kherson city military administration – took Sky News to visit a number of aid points where basic food supplies and water are being given to people.

The majority of those queuing up for support looked to be pensioners but there was the odd family with young children.

Dmytro Hubarev, 44, said life was hard as he received a loaf of bread, a can of beans and a tin of ham. “We were waiting for heat and power,” he said. “Now we are under shelling.”

Some residents approached the mayor with particular problems, including one woman who complained that she had pain in one of her eyes.

The mayor assured her: “We will be giving people a bag with necessary medicine. You will be receiving humanitarian aid with this bag with all the necessary [supplies].”

The woman, Natalia Skyba, 53, did not seem satisfied.

Kherson
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Kherson has been hard-hit since Russia’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine

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Asked by Sky News if she thought life was better or worse now Russia’s occupation had ended, she replied: “Worse. Worse. They are giving us aid but not for everyone.”

Yet life in this city while it was under Russian control was a different kind of hell.

People, who opposed the occupation, lived under fear of arrest, torture and even death if they stepped out of line or attempted to defy Kremlin plans to make Kherson part of Russia.

It is not an existence most want to return – though deciding which is the worst of two evils is becoming harder as the Russian shelling intensifies.

Leonid Borovskyi, 60, surveyed a huge hold in the wall of his next-door neighbour’s flat on the seventh floor of an apartment block in a residential area in the city.

Kherson flat
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A Russian rocket recently slammed into this Kherson flat

It was caused by a Russian rocket that slammed into the building the previous week.

Asked whether enduring Russian attacks was a price worth paying for liberation, he paused and thought deeply before answering.

“From the one side – yes. From the other side – no,” he said.

“Freedom comes at a high price.”

More than 200,000 residents have left the city since Russia’s occupation began – most before the liberation – leaving just under 80,000 still in their homes.

Because of the danger of incoming rounds, the Ukrainian government is encouraging more people to leave until it is safer.

An evacuation train departs each afternoon with new faces on board.

Sat at a window seat with a table, Viktoria Tupikonenko, 34, described how her whole family had celebrated the liberation of Kherson.

Viktoria
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Viktoria Tupikonenko described how her whole family had celebrated the liberation of Kherson

She said she could not believe one month later she would be forced to flee with her five-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter. Her husband stayed behind with his parents.

“I can’t believe I am just leaving everything – my native land, my native home,” Viktoria said, tears streaking down her face.

“I am leaving my husband but I must go. We don’t know for how long and I don’t know if I will come back, or if our house will survive, or if I even see my husband again.”

But she is in no doubt that this pain is a price worth paying for her country to be free.

“Freedom yes! We need to hold on.”

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

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Climate-vulnerable islands storm out of COP29 negotiation room in row over funding

Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.

Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.

After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.

Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.

The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.

Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.

“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.

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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.

“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”

Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”

The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.

This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.

Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.

Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.

A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.

Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.

He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”

“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

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At least 11 killed in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities say

At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.

Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.

State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.

Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.

The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike
Image:
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut, where four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike

Map of Lebanon and Israel

The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.

At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.

The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).

A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.

The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.

Pic: AP
Image:
Pic: AP

Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.

Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.

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US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.

Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.

According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.

It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia’s ‘unstoppable’ missile – as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

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Vladimir Putin vows to increase production of Russia's 'unstoppable' missile - as NATO and Ukraine to hold talks

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.

In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.

“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

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Putin’s warning to the West

Russia war latest: Long-awaited US air defences arrive in Ukraine

He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”

Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.

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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.

Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”

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Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.

NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.

EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’

Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.

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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?

Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.

At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.

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